It is known to mount red, green, and blue LED dies on a single submount to create a white light module. The submount is a thermally conductive and electrically insulating substrate (e.g., ceramic) with conductors formed on it that lead from the LED contacts to two or more leads or solder contact pads. The conductors typically interconnect at least some of the LEDs in series and/or parallel. The submount is then typically mounted on a printed circuit board having connectors leading to a power source and/or to other submounts. The heat generated by each die is transferred to the submount and ultimately to a heat sink (e.g., the circuit board) thermally coupled to the submount. Since the entire submount is substantially at the same temperature, an LED generating a relatively low heat compared to the other LEDs will be heated by the other LEDs. For example, the heat generated by a red LED may be less than the heat generated by a blue LED since less current needs to flow through the red LED to produce the desired light output.
Red and amber LEDs are typically formed using AlInGaP eptiaxial layers, while green and blue LEDs are typically formed using AlInGaN epitaxial layers. The light output of AlInGaP LEDs is very temperature sensitive (higher temperature=lower output) and much more sensitive than the light output of AlInGaN LEDs. Thus, the overall color (e.g., white point) of the RGB module will change with temperature. This is particularly undesirable when the module is used in a color display or for a flat panel display backlight. Further, excessive heating of an AlInGaP LED reduces its useful life.
Additionally, red LEDs are typically thicker than blue LEDs due to the red LEDs typically having a thick window layer. Therefore, the red LEDs sit up higher on the common submount, resulting the red and green/blue LEDs having different light output exit planes. This causes a variation in the overall color output of the module.
To avoid the above heating problems, the RGB LEDs may be mounted on separate submounts, but this results in additional costs, a larger area for the RGB module, voltage drops across the extra wiring, and other drawbacks.